27 articles
Arpeggio
Arpeggio (Italian, from arpa, harp): a chord's notes played one after another in ascending or descending order; a specific type of broken chord, marked by a wavy line, with the Alberti bass as its best-known named pattern.
Augmented sixth chord
Augmented sixth chord: a chromatic pre-dominant harmony built on the augmented sixth between lowered sixth and raised fourth scale degrees, resolving outward to the dominant. Types: Italian, French, German, Swiss sixth; German is enharmonic to a dominant seventh.
Cadence
Cadence (music): phrase-ending chord progression in tonal music. Main types: authentic V–I, plagal IV–I (Amen), half ending on V, deceptive V–vi; ranked by closure strength.
Canon (music)
Canon (卡农), from Greek kanon (rule), is the strictest contrapuntal form: voices imitate a leader melody exactly after fixed delays. Distinguished from the round (infinite canon) and fugue; best known from Pachelbel's Canon in D.
Cantus firmus
Cantus firmus (Latin, "fixed song"; also cantus prius factus, canto fermo): a preexisting melody, usually plainchant, forming the basis of a polyphonic work, carried by the tenor voice, central to the 15th-century cyclic mass and to species counterpoint pedagogy.
Chord (music)
Chord (music): three or more distinct pitches sounded together, the basic unit of Western harmony, built mostly by stacking thirds into triads (major, minor, diminished, augmented) with inversions, extensions, and suspension variants.
Chord progression
A chord progression, also called a chord change, is a series of chords played one after another, forming the harmonic backbone of a piece or song.
Consonance and dissonance
Consonance and dissonance: the stable-versus-tense contrast in simultaneous musical tones. Covers the Pythagorean ratio theory, Helmholtz's beating account, roughness and harmonicity hypotheses, and cross-cultural evidence such as the Tsimane' indifference to dissonance.
Counterpoint
Counterpoint (punctus contra punctum) is the technique of combining independent melodic lines that each remain melodies while forming harmony; taught through Fux's 1725 five species against a cantus firmus.
Diminished seventh chord
Diminished seventh chord (°7): four-note chord of stacked minor thirds dividing the octave equally; symmetrical, enharmonically reinterpretable, resolves to the tonic as a leading-tone dominant, and famous in opera for dramatic shock.
Diminished triad
A diminished triad is a three-note chord of two stacked minor thirds: root, minor third, and diminished fifth (tritone), written with a degree sign (vii°). Diatonic on degree 7 of major and degree 2 of natural minor; base of half-diminished and diminished seventh chords.
Dominant seventh chord
Dominant seventh chord (V7, major-minor seventh, Mm7): a major triad with a minor seventh, built on scale degree 5; its third-to-seventh tritone resolves to the tonic. Named via Rameau (1722); also a stable chord in blues and jazz.
Figured bass
Figured bass, also called thoroughbass or basso continuo, is Baroque shorthand notation in which numbers under a bass line indicate intervals to be played above it; performers improvised chords from the figures, and the system survives today as chord-inversion symbols in music theory teaching.
Half-diminished seventh chord
Half-diminished seventh chord (ø7, m7♭5, minor seventh flat five): a diminished triad plus minor seventh, diatonic as viiø7 in major and iiø7 in minor, differing from the fully diminished seventh only in the seventh.
Harmony
Harmony in music is the simultaneous sounding of two or more pitches as intervals and chords, with practices organizing chord progressions. Founded as modern theory by Rameau's 1722 Traité; recent cross-cultural research finds melody, not harmony, drives global scale structure.
Hugo Riemann
Hugo Riemann (1849–1919) was a German musicologist, generally seen as the most important of his age, whose function theory and Musik-Lexikon shaped modern music theory.
I–V–vi–IV progression
I–V–vi–IV (Axis progression, 1-5-6-4) is a four-chord pop loop, C–G–Am–F in C major, using tonic, dominant, relative minor, and subdominant chords; basis of Let It Be, Don't Stop Believin', and many hits.
Inversion (music)
Inversion (music): a chord voicing with a non-root bass note (first, second, third inversion; figured bass 6, 6/4; slash chords), also melodic, interval, and contrapuntal inversion; basis of smooth voice leading and cadential 6/4.
Modulation (music)
Modulation (music), also called a key change, is the shift of tonal center within a composition, distinct from brief tonicization. Main methods: pivot-chord, direct (truck-driver), common-tone, chromatic, and enharmonic modulation; dominant is the most common goal in major keys.
Picardy third
Picardy third (tierce de Picardie): a major tonic chord ending a minor-key piece or section, made by raising the chord's third a semitone; common in Renaissance and Baroque music, later used by Chopin, Dvorak, and the Beatles.
Polyphony
Polyphony (Greek πολυφωνία, many voices) is a musical texture of two or more independent melodic lines sounding at once, distinct from monophony and homophony, created through counterpoint, central to medieval and Renaissance music, and found in folk traditions worldwide.
Quartal and quintal harmony
Quartal and quintal harmony are methods of building chords by stacking fourth or fifth intervals instead of the traditional third. This creates an open, undecided sound.
Seventh chord
A seventh chord is a four-note chord built by adding a seventh above a triad's root. Five common types (major, dominant, minor, half-diminished, diminished seventh) drive Western harmony; the dominant seventh's tritone defines the key.
Suspended chord
Suspended chord (sus chord): a triad whose third is replaced by the second (sus2) or fourth (sus4), making it neither major nor minor; formulas 1-2-5 and 1-4-5, plain sus means sus4, from classical suspension voice leading.
Texture (music)
Texture (music): how melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic layers combine in a piece. Main types are monophony, homophony, polyphony, and heterophony, described as thick, thin, dense, or transparent.
Tonality
Tonality: the Western music-theoretical principle organizing pitch around a tonic, first named tonalité by Choron in 1810; covers the major–minor common-practice system, its historical rise and twentieth-century dissolution, and critiques of the concept.
Triad (music)
Triad (music): a three-note chord of root, third, and fifth, the basic unit of tonal harmony. Also called harmonia perfetta; four qualities (major, minor, diminished, augmented), three inversions, extends to seventh chords.